PSC Chairman Steven Kirogo (Right) addresses the meeting during Prof Prajapati Trivedi ‘s (second right) visit at the Public Service Commission on Wednesday 19th June 2019/Courtesy
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 20 – Kenya’s Public Service Commission has been challenged to spearhead Performance Contracting in the public service among small Commonwealth countries.
Prof. Prajapati Trivedi, the Commonwealth Secretariat Director of Economic, Youth and Sustainable Development said Kenya is a case study in performance management that should be emulated across the world owing to the tremendous progress it has made in rolling out performance contracting systems in the public service.
“We would like to have a meeting here of all 31 small states in the Commonwealth to take inspiration through South-South cooperation on what you have done,” he said.
Prof. Trivedi who is in the country to attend the Continental Africa Public Service Day (APSD) from 21st to 23rd June 2019 at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), said this on Wednesday at the Public Service Commission, where he gave a presentation on “Experience of Implementing Performance Contracting: What works and what does not work.”
He noted that while setting development objectives is not a challenge among developing countries, implementing targets to meet the objectives has been the missing link.
Trivedi said performance contracting is the most ‘comprehensive vein’ through which a government’s performance can be evaluated both in financial and non-financial aspects.
“In fact, if we don’t have good performance management, then democracies are in danger, because people get disillusioned as election promises are not achieved,” he said.
He asserted that economic development is closely related to a country’s ability to implement policies, projects and programmes; while at the same time, implementation is directly related to effective follow up, which depends on effective performance contracting.
He said Kenya’s experience in performance management has not been properly documented by any international body, and this is what the Commonwealth Secretariat intended to do.
Prof. Trivedi, a guru in performance management, is a 2019 award winner of the Harry Harty Distinguished Performance Management Award by the Center for Accountability and Performance (CAP), and also renown for having designed ‘a highly regarded whole-of-government performance monitoring and evaluation systems for government departments and reporting the results to the Prime Minister of India between 2009 and 2014.
Public Service Commission Chairman, Stephen Kirogo said the visit by Prof. Trivedi came at the right time when the Commission was finalizing Performance Management improvement systems for the Public Service.
Present during the meeting were PSC Vice Chairperson, Charity Kisoutu, Commissioners Joyce Nyabuti, Joan Otieno, Salma Ahmed, Mary Mwiandi, Reuben Chirchir, and Andrew Muriuki; CEO Simon Rotich, and PSC Directors.
Also present were representatives from Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender, Kenya School of Government and the National Treasury.
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